My First Spiritual Experience At The Age of 7
For the first few months of her life, I would watch baby Tumti, my niece, stare at her hands, contemplating. While she wondered what the stubby little things in front of her face were good for (clapping, she soon realized), I was taken back to a relatively warm night in the year 1989. I was staring at my own hands in the backseat of my parents’ blue Oldsmobile station wagon. That was back when station wagons were still cool; back when the metal seatbelt buckles would burn your hands on a summer day after a trip to the grocery store. It was one of my favorite cars, the car we took on our yearly drive to Canada, when we folded the back seat down, creating the ultimate in mobile beds.
This, unfortunately, was not a trip to Canada. Instead, we were driving back from a mosque in New Jersey (yup, New Jersey consists of 70 percent pavement, 30 percent landfill, and it is home of the Islamic Society of Central Jersey). Not only was I watching my hands, I was watching the various reds, yellows, and green lights move across them as my father drove us home. Wiggling my fingers, it felt like I could separate my soul from the body that encased it, stepping back and seeing that I was creation. Of course, at age seven, I didn’t think of it that way. All I knew was that it was like a drug. I was ecstatic, but I could only feel it for a few seconds and then it was gone, no matter how much I tried to hold on.
And so that’s how it began. Just an awareness that my conscience, that thing that listens to the voice in my head, was separate from my body.
And that is how it stayed- at least for a little while. Just like how some kids seem to lose their natural curiousity and want for learning after a few years of public school, I lost God in what people were (or were not) telling me about The Most Merciful. I began to attend a Sunday School taught by teenage girls at age 11. Interestingly enough, at age 11, they put me in a kindergarten class so I could learn the “basics.” You know, like when you don’t cover your mouth during a yawn Satan comes into your mouth. Forget about it not being polite, they went straight to Satan. I won’t bother you with the craziness that I was force-fed in Sunday school. Within the year I had made it to the 4th grade, with a brief stint in 2nd grade. Thankfully, Islamic school standards of education are low, making skipping 3-4 grades at a time quite simple. Alhamdulillah, right?
A couple years had passed and I joined an alternative-Saturday school. They weren’t much better, and in fact, I was promoted to a teacher, not bad for someone who had been in the Sunday school system for about a year. I helped kids learn how to read Arabic, but received constant nagging for not making my kids sit “islamically.” No matter that the kids I was responsible for retained the most amount of information, and had so much fun with me that they actually wanted to attend school! When is the last time you heard a kid say they wanted to go to Islamic Sunday school? Parents were fascinated. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of leaving because of the constant nagging.
At this time I was also severely depressed and suicidal (see the archives if you are interested in something I wrote back then). My parents decided to fund a trip to Maine for me to chill out for 2 weeks, poop in the woods, drink water from puddles, and bathe in leech infested waters. I also had an island to myself for two days with a small amount of food, and a tarp (for shelter). It was on that island that I talked to God while watching baby fish float by.
It wasn’t until the age of 18 that I began looking at the Qur’an not just as an intellectual endeavor, but as something which my heart felt to be the Truth (capital T intended). I never had the conservative stage that many Muslims have told me about, instead I just went with the flow, moving at my own pace towards building an awareness of God. And all of the signs both internal and external are pointing to becoming an imam, not just by name, but in spirit. Well, I’m ready for the challenge, God willing.
